Environment, Nature, Research, Science, Sensors

Spinach plants and Raspberry Pi used to detect bomb material

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Nanosensor plants

A team from MIT has published a paper in which they describe a bomb detection experiment conducted with spinach plants. The plants, which are sensitive to the presence of “nitro-aromatics” (key components of several bomb-making substances), have carbon-nanotube-based nanoparticles embedded in their leaves that give off infra-red light. A Raspberry Pi with an IR camera is used to detect this light. You can read the full Nature Materials article here, a slightly less complicated explanation at livescience.com here and an even simpler explanation over at the BBC.

Games, Making, Programming, Software, Tutorials

Build a chess computer via a noughts-and-crosses computer with a Raspberry Pi

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Maxim has used a Raspberry Pi to create a chess computer and he’s documented the entire process.

(The game) runs from an Arduino which controls the board, connected to a Raspberry PI which runs the chess engine Stockfish and a chess rules library called Chessboard. It is completely self contained, just plug it in, press the green button and you are playing.

First of all, he helps you to understand the build concepts by getting you to manufacture a noughts-and-crosses (tic-tac-toe) board:

And then gives you the instructions you need to build the full board:

You can follow the build instructions and see photos and videos to do with the project by visiting Maxim’s website.

Education, Environment, Photography, Research

Virtual Forest experience powered by a Raspberry Pi

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forest

Koen Hufkens is a research associate at Harvard University and his research focuses on “understanding the relation between climate (change) and seasonal variability in vegetation growth”. He’s also a maker and software developer and he has brought all these interests together to create the ‘Virtual Forest‘. The project uses a Raspberry Pi 2 to capture, via a Ricoh Theta S USB camera, a forest-scape and then deliver that picture to the Internet over an ethernet cable. You can try it out yourself here or read a lot more about the project by visiting the Virtual Forest website.

Events, Raspberry Jams

Cambridge Raspberry Jam – Saturday, 3rd December – #rjam

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CamJam-4_sm

We’re pleased to announce that the next Cambridge Raspberry Jam will take place on Saturday, 3rd December at the Institute of Astronomy. We’ll have the usual mix of talks, Show & Tell, Marketplace and, of course, workshops. General tickets for the Jam are available now and tickets for workshops will be available soon. Get your tickets from Eventbrite here.

Art, Blinkies, Making, Music

Amazing flaming art piece uses Raspberry Pi 3 to control 2000 blinkies!

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'Le Attrata,' 2016. Photo by Meike Gugel

‘Le Attrata,’ 2016. Photo by Meike Gugel

A fantastic sculpture/musical instrument is currently being shown at various festivals in the United States.

Le Attrata is an innovative fire sculpture created by Therm, made up of three stainless steel moths with 12-foot wingspans, set on top of 18-foot high spires. The moths (turbine-driven blast furnaces) ignite, spark, pop, and whine, while three human musicians “play” them like instruments. Two thousand programmable LEDs are embedded in the sculpture and glow and shift, projecting incredible light patterns. These LEDs are controlled by a Raspberry Pi 3 and FadeCandy. Read more over at The Creators Project and see more photographs over at Therm’s own website. You can see a video of it in action at Burning Man 2016 below.

Events, Making, Robotics, Silliness

Scary Halloween hi-jinks with a spring-loaded scary mask driven by a Raspberry Pi

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David Pride (he of the Pi-driven Connect 4 game along with other wonderful hacks!) has been at it again. In the hope of scaring the begeezus out of trick-or-treaters, he’s hooked up a motorised mechanism to his Pi that will launch a spring-loaded trellis. On top of the trellis is a terrifying ghoul mask. An ultrasonic sensor detects people approaching and the trellis is then activated, with accompanying scary sounds, of course. It runs off batteries making it ‘headless’ (ha-ha). You can read about the build on David’s blog and see a video of it in action below (thanks David for uploading!):